Birth: NULL/NULL/1937 Death:NULL/NULL/NULL
Born in Abu Dis, near Jerusalem, in 1937; received a Diploma in Banking; joined Fateh in 1968; founder of Samed Institute in Beirut in the late 1970s; accompanied Yasser Arafat to Damascus in 1983 and to Tunis in 1984; became head of the PLO Economic Dept. in Tunis and member of several financial sub-committees; was elected a member of the Fateh Central Committee in Aug. 1989; member of the PLO Central Council; member of the PNC; was sent by Arafat to Washington to serve as member of the PLO Steering Committee, which advised the official Palestinian negotiators in the 1992 talks; chief negotiator for the PLO during the secret talks with Israel in Oslo, Norway in 1993; initiated, with Shimon Peres on the Israeli side, the final version of the DoP on 20 Aug. 1993; prepared the ‘Program for Development of the Palestinian National Economy, 1994-2000;’ served as Managing Director of PECDAR since its creation in 1993; was appointed PA Minister of Economy and Trade and later of Industry (1994-96); had a key role in negotiating the April 1994 Paris Economic Protocol; led the negotiation team towards the 1995 Oslo II Agreement and was the Palestinian representative on the Steering Committee that monitored its implementation; was elected PLC member for Jerusalem in the Jan. 1996 elections (was number one on the list); elected speaker of the PLC in 1996 and served in that post until 2003; remained a chief negotiator in Palestinian-Israeli talks; owns a cement company; after the resignation of PM Mahmoud Abbas, he was appointed PM in the PA’s Oct. 2003 Emergency Govt. and the subsequent new govt. of 12 Nov. 2003, where he also held the positions of Information and Waqf Minister; was confirmed as PM of Palestine in Feb. 2005 (until after the Jan. 2006 PLC elections).
